Microsoft has signed a 10-year deal with Boosteroid to bring Xbox PC games and Activision Blizzard titles like Call of Duty to the cloud gaming service. The deal rests on Microsoft’s proposed Activision acquisition being approved by regulators, and comes weeks after Microsoft struck similar deals with Nvidia and Nintendo. Microsoft president Brad Smith says more deals will follow in the coming weeks.
It looks like Microsoft is holding its annual Build developers conference in May again this year. Twitter leaker h0x0d has published a marketing image of the Build dates, with an in-person element in Seattle between May 23rd and May 25th. Build 2022 also took place in late May, but the in-person part was very limited. We’ll likely hear a lot about Microsoft’s AI product plans at this year’s event.
Happy Pi Day, or should I say happy geek holiday. Everyone loves the mathematical constant, but before you go eating 3.14 slices of cake to celebrate, consider holding off for Tau Day instead. You see Pi might actually be terrible as a constant, and using Tau instead is easier and more practical. Read former Verge Senior Reporter Chaim Gartenberg’s deep dive on Tau right here.
Microsoft is now running full-page ads in the Financial Times and the Daily Mail to push for its Activision Blizzard deal to be approved by UK regulators. It comes just as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) considers Sony’s concerns over Call of Duty (CoD) ahead of a decision on the $68.7 billion deal. The 150 million more CoD players refers to the deals Microsoft signed with Nintendo and Nvidia recently.
